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Chester

Chester, described in the 890s as ‘a deserted city in Wirral’ (ASC, s.a. 893), was ‘restored’ in 907 (ASC, Mercian Register), presumably by Æthelred, ealdorman of the Mercians, and his wife Æthelflæd. The church which came to be known as St Werburg’s was probably founded in Chester at about this time, and appears to have been served by secular canons. St Werburg (daughter of Wulfhere, king of the Mercians) became a nun at Ely, and was closely associated with monasteries at Threckingham (Lincs.) and Hanbury (Staffs.); she died in the early eighth century, and her relics were translated from Hanbury to Chester in the first half of the tenth century. It was refounded as a Benedictine abbey in the early 1090s, by Hugh I, earl of Chester.

Only a single bifolium survives from what would appear to have been the principal cartulary of St Werburg’s, written in the latter part of the thirteenth century (BL Harley 2071, fols. 38-9 (Davis 228)). We are therefore largely dependent on a later cartulary of the abbey, written in the first half of the fourteenth century (BL Harley 1965 (Davis 229)); see Chartulary of the Abbey of St. Werburgh, Chester, ed. Tait. The first entry is Earl Hugh’s charter confirming the foundation of the Benedictine abbey. The text of S 667, dated 958 (‘dcccclviii’), was entered as an afterthought in space left blank at the beginning of this manuscript, by someone other than the compiler of the cartulary itself. The charter was printed by Dugdale ‘ex vetusto exemplari penes Willielmum Vernon de S[h]akerley in com. Lanc. generosum. an. 1630’ (Mon. Angl. i. 200). Dugdale’s text is abbreviated in the same ways as the text in the fourteenth-century cartulary (omitting the boundary clause, and with no more than the king’s name from the witness-list); so it would appear that his reference is to an ancient copy in the cartulary, as opposed to a lost original.

A single royal diploma: S 667, dated 958 (‘dcccclviii’), by which Edgar, ‘king of the Mercians’, granted various estates in Flint and Cheshire to the community of St Werburg’s. A very interesting charter from a diplomatic viewpoint. Proem based on Sedulius and Aldhelm (see Tait). Cf. S 677 (EHD 109), S 712a (the Ballidon charter), and S 723. It should be noted that the charter of King Edgar accounts for a relatively small proportion of the church’s recorded endowment TRE and TRW (GDB 263rv).